


Off the Record

by meguri_aite



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Ensemble Cast, M/M, Mutual Pining, Spin the Bottle, media as a supportive third wheel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: “Have you seen this,” Yuri gloats one evening, “you are apparently in a committed relationship. Congratulations!”
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 26
Kudos: 276
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Off the Record

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulstoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Off the Record](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25616347) by [fandom Kumys 2020 (fandom_Kumys_2018)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Kumys_2018/pseuds/fandom%20Kumys%202020), [Menada_Vox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menada_Vox/pseuds/Menada_Vox)



On the whole, Yuri doesn’t have a problem with social media.

It is, of course, full of stupid shit, but so are people. Everyone’s favourite sport is jumping to conclusions anyway, and his feeds are always full of gossip, wild theories and latest memes. Yakov likes to lecture about managing their media presence, blah blah, but Yuri doesn’t pay him much mind. If other people choose to ooze sap on live television and compete with camera flashes, it is their own dumb choice. One Victor is already too much Victor for this world.

On the upside — dumb snaps with cats. Trashtalking friends on IG. Facetime with Beka.

“Hey, have you seen the latest from Phichit?” Yuri scrolls through his insta feed as he talks. They are both at home at the end of a long day, and Facetime is on while Yuri stretches and winds down. Otabek has this habit of seriously looking into the camera while they talk, as if they were sitting across from each other at dinner table. Yuri doesn’t remember a single conversation, online or in real life, that he went through without poking at his phone at least once, but Otabek is different. Otabek’s cool. 

Yuri shifts from a right split to left, all the while tapping on his phone. Phichit is organizing some expo back at his home rink, and has been low-key posting promo for a while now, but it’s not until later in the year, as offseason as they can get. Yuri said he’d come, too, but he is rapidly reconsidering his life choices because —

“Gah, what are Katsudon and Victor doing there?” Yuri says in disbelief, and points his phone screen at Otabek.

“Are they in Bangkok?” Otabek squints, trying to make out the details through two glaring screens between them. 

“They have no business being there now, Phichit’s show is not until August,” Yuri wails, betrayed. They are still mid-season, and Victor and Katsuki putting their gruelling training regimen on hold to elope to somewhere _again_ is only half of the problem. The other half is the sight of Victor kneeling at Katsuki’s feet, a heap of exotic fruit extended as a bouquet. They are gazing into each other’s eyes with nauseating adoration, which is nothing Yuri hasn’t seen before, but now they are doing it on a boat floating along rows and rows of tropical fruit. “Every time I see a post like that, it shaves ten years off my life, I swear to God,” he complains.

“I’m not sure your math checks out,” Otabek says dryly. He is, unfortunately, right. “Do you think they are there to help Phichit with the preparations? Katsuki and him were rinkmates, right?”

Yuri could have spared some breath to rant about airheaded people who think they can be a successful figure skater, a coach, and a mooning boyfriend all at the same time, and still find time for tropical mini breaks, or whatever is their latest excuse. But Yuri is not yet done working out all of the loathing he has on the previous tangent.

“Seriously, do they think the world wants to see more of their diabetically sweet romance? Because it doesn’t! In fact, I don’t want to see any disgusting romance from anyone!”

“On Instagram?” Otabek asks. “Or in general?”

Yuri ponders the question for a second as he switches to side splits, his worn-out home pants snagging against the carpet a little. A long string of PDA witnessed firsthand flashes in front of his eyes, and he shudders. “Generally,” he says, resolute. He remembers Yuri’s Angels, and breaks in cold sweat. “In fact, if anyone has any… romantic urges, they should squash them. Or at least tag them, so that I can blacklist that.” Yuri vengefully scrolls down his feed until Victor and Katsuki well and truly disappear from his screen.

“Noted,” Otabek says seriously.

“Right?” Yuri nods. Otabek always understands him. “It’s their problem entirely. Now, this, this you gotta see — JJ is offering to send signed life-size cardboard cutouts of himself to the first three fans who can correctly answer all trivia questions about his skating career. Have you seen a bigger moron on the planet? Do you think I should enter just so I can publically refuse his crappy poster?”

***

“Have you seen this?” Yuri gloats another evening. “You are apparently in a committed relationship. Congratulations!”

“Oh?” Otabek blinks at him from the screen. It’s later in Almaty than it is in St. Petersburg, and his room is already dark. Lit up only by the screen glare, Otabek looks relaxed in this withdrawn way of his, like when he is bent over a DJ station in the club. Lost to the world, mixing cool rhythms as strips of strobe light wash over his face in a transfixing pattern.

“Say what?” Yuri realizes he has lost the train of the conversation.

Otabek props his chin on a fist. “You were telling me about my relationship.”

“Oh right!” Yuri pulls up the thread on his phone. “Totally. Your secret relationship is out.”

“Is it now?” Otabek asks with mild interest. “Who is the lucky person?”

That was the question that occupied Yuri throughout today’s practice, in the excruciating hour between Mila deciding to casually mention that she forwarded him some juicy gossip on Otabek’s love life — while they were practicing goddamn quads! — and Yakov letting them out on a break. 

Turns out, it’s not so bad.

“The lucky person is clearly you,” Yuri informs Otabek. “Because you are dating me.”

Otabek’s hand slips from under his chin.

He’d better be amazed, Yuri thinks, and not shocked by the idea. It’s not like this is utterly impossible, after all.

“In that case, you are right, of course,” Otabek says. Yuri glares at him with suspicion, but in the blue light of his screen Otabek looks like he always does, cool and collected to the whole world, and ready to share a dry joke with Yuri alone. “I’m apparently in luck.”

Placated, Yuri continues scrolling through the article. “Apparently, we’ve had a romantic break in Moscow for St. Valentine’s.”

“Well, that is true. I did fly to Moscow in February,” Otabek points out.

“Yeah, but it was my grandpa’s birthday. Of course you had to come. They don’t know that,” Yuri says, smug. “Hear this, though. _Yuri Plisetsky forsakes his home rink for Christmas in Almaty._ These idiots still haven’t figured out we don’t celebrate Christmas in December… And I wasn’t going to miss your first official DJ-ing job!”

“And we got to skate in Medeu before the New Year,” Otabek smiles.

“You were totally right, it has the most amazing illumination in December!” Yuri grins. “But you gotta come to check out the Christmas rink in Red Square this year. It’s stupidly overpriced, of course, and there are no pretty mountains, but there is also a ton of lights overhead and all around, and well — you can see for yourself which one you like better.”

“Looking forward to that,” Otabek says, warmly. 

“Me too.” Yuri beams. It’s going to be so much fun. He’ll ask grandpa to make Otabek’s favourite cake again. It’s going to be the best New Year yet.

“Any other incriminating evidence?” Otabek asks.

“Let me see. There is Barcelona, of course — that’s a really good shot of us at that expo skate, by the way, I’ll forward it to you in a sec — and pictures from parties at Victor’s place. I’m not forwarding you _those_ , eugh.”

“I think everyone on Instagram has seen them by now anyway,” Otabek says, one corner of his mouth curling up.

“You mean everyone in the world and their grandmother! Victor has no restraint when he posts about Katsuki. And newspapers have no restraint when it comes to them. Thanks for coming over to their anniversary party, by the way. I’d not have survived it without you.”

“Sure thing.” Otabek is a true friend, and never fails to show up on a rescue mission.

Yuri scrolls through the rest of the article. There are a few more pictures, and another good one of them sharing a podium at Four Continents this January. He saves it to his phone, too.

“You are not bothered by it?” Otabek asks after a while. His voice is a little rusty. Yuri glances at the clock and adjusts for their time difference — way past Otabek’s usual bedtime. They’ve gotten carried away again.

“You should tell me when it’s time to hang up, you.” Yuri pokes a finger at his screen. “You are the one in an earlier time zone.”

“I’ll go soon. Tell me what you think?”

Yuri mentally rewinds the conversation. Was there a question? 

Oh, right.

“Nah,” he says with a shrug. “It’s you. And they don’t know what they are talking about anyway.” Yuri is a little unnerved by how seriously Otabek asked the question. His earlier reservations come back. “You’re fine, too, yeah?” Yuri asks, gruffly.

“It’s you,” Otabek echoes. “Lucky me, didn’t you say?”

Yuri grins at him, relieved. 

Otabek is officially the coolest person he knows.

***

Everyone on the Internet loves _Phichit on Ice_. It’s not surprising, as the thing gets more coverage than an average professional skating event. Only in Phichit’s world would a charity event thrown together with a circle of friends actually be a collab that has conjured the entire body of competitive figure skaters. 

It’s the end of their second week in Thailand, and Yuri is sunburnt, addicted to fresh coconut juice, and generally content with life. The expo was fun. He’s gonna keep the outfit, for the memories. 

Yuri is wandering through the hotel lobby, tapping idly on his phone, wondering where everyone has wandered off to. He is not actually dying to rejoin them. The heat of the day has gone down with the sun, and he is hoping Otabek is in the mood for one of his night rides across the city.

Otabek is not picking up his phone, though. Yuri checks Twitter and IG, his usual shortcuts to finding people, through other people chronicling everyone’s whereabouts, including Otabek’s. It’s mysteriously quiet as of the last half hour.

As a last resort, Yuri gives up and opens the — always muted, frequently archived and then, inevitably, reluctantly brought back — group chat with Victor and Katsuki.

Yuri ignores 276 missed notifications and jumps to the last message, which is a blurry picture timestamped half an hour ago. _Chris is organizing a game night, I think,_ says a text from Katsuki. _His room, if you want to join._

It’s a dark and troubling message. The picture loads to reveal an even more troubling image of Georgi spinning a bottle with religious concentration on his face.

Yuri recognizes the black t-shirt with a band logo cropped more than half out of the frame, and his heart lurches like a wobbly Salchow landing. He curses, slips his phone into his pocket, and rushes to Otabek’s rescue.

The room is, predictably, a madhouse at full occupancy. Yuri’s eyes familiarly skip over Victor trying to wrap himself around Yuri — nothing he hasn’t seen before — and he steps over their entangled limbs to the nearest free spot on the floor, which turns out to be next to Mila and opposite Otabek.

“What’s the game,” Yuri says, eyeing the bottle with hostility.

Mila giggles into her drink adorned with a colorful umbrella. There are many of those distributed across the room, and more still lined up on top of the room’s small table bar. “It changes every other round. It’s truth or dare now, I think.” Yuri doesn’t like the sound of that one bit.

“But you are only allowed to play if you give away your phone,” Phichit chimes in from across the room before Yuri can protest or ask more questions. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

“But it’s Bangkok,” says Georgi earnestly. No one pays him any mind. 

This whole thing sounds like a terrible idea. It also explains why no one has been texting about it, which is only halfway reassuring.

Yuri hands over his phone and aggressively camps out on the floor. Across the room, Otabek gives him a tiny apologetic shrug, like he, too, doesn’t know what they are doing here. Somebody likely dragged him along. Between good-for-nothing Victor, giggling Mila, and God-help-him Chris, Yuri suspects everyone in the room.

“Phichit lost the first round,” Mila leans heavily against him and speaks right into his ear. “Yuuri dared him to keep this entire thing off social media. Somehow it turned into Phichit making sure no one else could post a thing, too. I still think he could be cheating.”

Judging by the innocent and happy expression on Phichit’s face, Yuri wouldn’t bet against Mila’s theory. He doesn’t tell her that, and instead pushes her off himself with a little too much force — and into Sara Crispino. Mila overbalances with a small yelp, and Sara catches her in her arms. Mila looks very pleased with herself and the general situation, so Yuri reconsiders apologizing and turns his back to her.

People tell Yuri that as a newcomer, he gets the next turn at spinning the bottle. It stops when its neck points to Chris, who wriggles his eyebrows and chooses dare. 

“Ten minutes in a standing split,” Yuri says, without giving it too much thought. 

There is a disappointed sigh across the room. 

“What?” Yuri bristles. “It’s not an impossible challenge.”

“I think this buttercup is missing the point of adult games played behind closed doors,” Chris murmurs, fondling his raised leg with unnecessary sensuousness. “Allow me to demonstrate on my next turn.”

“Don’t threaten our young generation too much, old man,” Victor says airily. “He’s still got ambitious goals ahead of him.” 

“If you weren’t a married man, I’d offer to show you how much vigor —” Chris starts to purr, bending backwards, but Yuri interrupts him. “Oi, don’t slack off on the split. It’s not been ten minutes yet.”

“Actually, why don’t we change the game again,” intervenes Katsuki, raising his hands in a placating gesture. 

“Make it a stripping game,” Chris says instantly, pulling himself upright. “It’s my turn to go next, so I’m choosing.” To his credit, at least he holds his split.

“We are not stripping,” Michele Crispino rears up his head. “No way that my beautiful sister is going to play into any man’s dirty fantasies.”

Sara stops fanning Mila with a paper fan to whack her brother with it.

“Not stripping, then, to protect Mickey’s innocent eyes,” Chris agrees amicably. There is a glint in his eyes that doesn’t bode well. “Then you can’t possibly object to seven minutes in heaven? It can be very modest, depending on the players’ self-restraint.” Chris’s smile suggests only a passing acquaintance with the concept.

“The wardrobe in the room is large enough to work as a closet,” Phichit points out helpfully. “We could do it.”

Yuri doesn’t see why they have to go along with any of it, but Otabek is still in the room, and Yuri doesn’t want to abandon him, so he stays put. The only loud protest comes from Michele, who cries that he won’t be kissing any girls who aren’t Sara. 

“You must be open to opportunities, Mickey,” says Georgi solemnly. “A kiss can be the magic spell that breaks the boundaries of conformity and binds two souls together.” Thankfully, everyone is used to Georgi, and ignores the weirdo.

“You can always cry chicken,” Phichit says to Michele in the same tones of a helpful host. “You know the penalty.”

“That’s inviting JJ to dinner,” Mila stage-whispers, waving with tipsy urgency at Yuri from Sara’s lap. He throws a horrified glance at Otabek, who returns it with a grim nod of confirmation. 

Whoever made the rule was a _sadist_ , Yuri thinks with grudging respect. He’s not gonna lose to that one.

Chris doesn’t get to spin the bottle, “because he used his turn to change the rules”, as Phichit declares. He hands the bottle over to Katsuki, who smiles and sets it spinning.

Minami lets out a long trembling sigh, watching each swooping turn of the bottle as if it was a world championship lottery.

“Oy, should you two be even allowed to play this?” Yuri raises an eyebrow at Katsuki.

“I have faith in my beloved,” Victor says solemnly, a hand on his heart.

“And I have faith in my motor skills,” Katsuki says with a small half-smile.

The bottle stops spinning, pointing unerringly at Victor.

“Yuuri!” Victor exclaims with so much joy as if he has just been proposed to again, scoops his husband into his arms, and steps out of the room. 

“Um, guys? The closet was in the other direction?” Phichit says. The bathroom door slams closed. Mila sighs happily, like she does at the end of particularly sappy movies. 

Yuri honestly doesn’t know why people put up with these two breaking all the rules, all the time. “That will take a while,” he points out the obvious.

“The closet is still free,” Chris says. “We don’t have to wait for Victor and Yuuri to come back to play the next round.”

Minami wilts, but Georgi nods enthusiastically, like a man definitely open to new opportunities.

Emil ends up taking the next turn. His bottle spins for a really long while before it stops, in cinematic slow motion, right between Sara and Michele.

“Not Sara!” Michele growls, stretching out a hand to shield his sister. Sara rolls her eyes and swats it away.

“Well, if you insist,” Emil says gallantly, “I will gladly take you up on your offer, Mickey.” He pulls a still-sputtering Michele to his feet and cheerily spirits him away towards the closet. There is some muffled noise and Michele’s faint protests as they arrange themselves inside. 

Then it gets quiet, for a long while.

Sara gleefully keeps the time. Seven minutes later, she shouts for them to come out. Emil and Michele step back out, Michele red-faced and silent, Emil his usual cheerful self.

Mila and Sara exchange a discreet high-five.

Next turn is Georgi’s. Everyone watches the bottle with morbid curiosity, until it stops — pointing at Chris, once again.

“It senses my animal magnetism like a compass,” Chris says. Still, he escorts Georgi to the closet like a gentleman, even though people start making bets about how it will go even before they close the door behind themselves. 

The speculation dies off as the noise starts. The bumps, moans and other embarrassing noises are stupidly loud, and Yuri would have really preferred not to know that they are coming from Chris and Georgi of all people. He resents that Victor and Katsuki, who are still in the bathroom, safely escaped being subjected to this.

The bets are now heavily focused on the exact state of ravishment that Georgi will reappear in. 

They are all disappointed. When they step out of the closet, Georgi is fresh and pink-cheeked like a daisy, and Chris — Chris looks _thoughtful_.

Yuri refuses to contemplate what this means. Nope. Flat-out no. 

Mila pulls some undetermined favour with Phichit to have the next round. Phichit gives up his turn without protest, and Yuri starts to suspect that if Phichit is somehow rigging the game, Mila is in on this business, because her bottle lands on Sara. 

Whispering and holding hands, the girls disappear into the closet. Michele, still faintly red and evidently deep in thought, forgets to protest.

Seven minutes later, they call back for them. Ten minutes. No answer.

“Oh well, I guess we can continue the game here in the room, like a regular spin the bottle,” says Phichit. “Otabek, your turn.”

Otabek gives the bottle an absent-minded spin on his palm before putting it on the floor. Yuri comes crashing into a realization that until this very moment, it had not occurred to him that Otabek — his Otabek, his goddamn most favourite person in the world Otabek — would be kissing some rando tonight. 

The thought is incomprehensible. 

Panicked, Yuri watches the bottle slide sideways across the floor as it finishes its last spin. His heart rate spikes up in panic, and his eyes flicker across the room along with the movement of the bottle — Emil, Minami, Phichit, Chris (no, ew, please), Michele and —

— the bottle stops, pointing at Yuri like a loaded cannon.

Wild-eyed, Yuri looks at Otabek. All of his thoughts have screeched to a halt with the noise of flat edges of his blades scraping across the ice.

Otabek’s face is inscrutable. For the first time, Yuri desperately resents that.

Otabek rises quietly, and closes the distance in a few steps, sitting down within arm's reach from Yuri. Very slowly and deliberately, he leans even closer, until Yuri can feel Otabek’s warm breath wash over his face. There is a small tremble starting at the tip of Yuri’s fingers, and he tightens his fists to stifle it. Yuri bites his suddenly dry lips, and tells himself to keep his eyes open.

And then Otabek angles his face away, missing Yuri’s face by a ridiculous inch. It’s a shock to the entire system, like flubbing a jump and hitting the ice with his whole body.

“I can ask JJ out for dinner, if you’d rather not do this,” Otabek whispers in his ear.

Yuri’s brain short-circuits, wires crossing somewhere over _asking JJ for dinner_ coming from Otabek’s mouth and going off with a bang. 

“The fuck you will,” he hisses. He unfurls his now bloodless fists, grabs Otabek by his neck with one hand, cups his jaw with another, and throws himself into a kiss.

It’s not at all like throwing himself into the air on ice. Hell, Yuri knows what he is doing there. He has perfect control over his momentum and rotations, and has never messed up a jump on ice when it counted.

He has no control over what he is doing now, with Otabek’s warm skin under his hands and mouth, the pace of his own heartbeat a roar in his ears, and this terrible urgency that it should not be only his own system that is going haywire.

An excruciating moment later, Otabek braces a hand on Yuri’s shoulder and runs his other hand softly through Yuri’s hair, fingers gliding lightly down his neck, and Yuri’s knees tremble with the weight of his relief. His mouth softens against the warm pressure of Otabek’s lips, and his panic ebbs, leaving in its wake little bolts of electricity that nip at his skin like static. Yuri digs his fingers more firmly into the thick muscles of Otabek’s neck — so solid, fuck — and he thinks about kicking his knees apart to edge in even closer, but not if he has to let go first, and —

A whistle and a long ‘Wow!’ followed by ‘Victor, shh, let’s leave them!’ cut through the static haze in Yuri’s head.

Yuri pulls back with so much force that he almost brains himself against the wall. He can’t look at Otabek, swaying a little on his knees, because if he does, he knows he’ll throw himself right back at him, so Yuri makes himself look around the room instead.

“Whatcha staring at?” he bites out. His chest is heaving, so he isn’t sure he’s good to say much else.

“Well,” says Phichit brightly, clapping his hands once. “Would you look at who finally came back? Yuuri, I think your shirt buttons are all done up wrong.”

As people start giving Katsuki and Victor shit, Yuri takes a few deep breaths. For the first time ever, he has something good to say about Victor and Katsuki’s attention-grabbing exhibitionism, though not for a reason he has ever imagined.

Yuri shuffles forward, takes Otabek’s hand and squeezes it until his knuckles go white. 

He still can’t bring himself to look at Otabek.

***

What feels like an earth-shattering explosion in Yuri’s head goes completely unnoticed by the rest of the world.

By some miracle, the ban on social media imposed that one night in Thailand seems to have held. There are plenty of pictures of them all on and off ice from Bangkok, including some ridiculous photos from the day at the beach — Yuri loves his red tiger print shorts, but they do nothing to downplay his horrible sunburn, and then there is Giorgi’s beach make-up, which became viral and lives on as _#restingbeachface_ meme — and yet there is no whisper of what happened in Chris’s room. Not a single vague tweet.

The world carries on as usual, which is fine, and so does Otabek, which is — 

— unbelievable. Frustrating. Maddening.

They fly back from Bangkok to their respective home rinks, to train for the new season. Same as always, they exchange texts and pics throughout the day, and spend every other evening chatting on video. At first Yuri is relieved, because what if the game night has made everything awkward, and they could no longer talk to each other easily like before? He observes Otabek closely, while doing his best to talk casually through the heart that keeps on leaping to his throat at odd moments. But night after night, Otabek remains the same steady, warm presence in his life, and Yuri starts to relax into the routine.

Until one day he catches himself wondering, what if the explosion was entirely one-sided? What if Otabek is not nervous or awkward because he sees no reason why anything should be awkward after the game night — because it was just that, a stupid game night?

Yuri doesn’t know that, of course. But since everything carries on as before, he can draw his own conclusions.

They could have talked about what happened, Yuri concedes to himself, but also maybe not. He truly doesn't want to learn that Otabek might have really preferred that thrice damned dinner with JJ instead.

It’s for the best that they don’t talk about it, he decides.

But his own body continues to riot, itchy with these cravings he never had the names for before, and his mind derails on a trajectory so embarrassing he wonders if it would earn him a spot on the wall of shame along with Victor and Katsuki. One night, he pulls up that article about Otabek’s alleged “secret romance with world champion Yuri Plitsetsky”, and reads it with something not unlike jealousy.

Disgusted with himself, Yuri throws the phone across the room and slumps on the couch in defeat.

Several weeks in, it occurs to him that perhaps it’s social media that’s at fault. It’s clearly possible to hide messy feelings behind updates and hashtags and the safety of double screens. Yuri himself is managing it just fine, which means other people can do it as well.

Clearly the only answer is confronting it face-to-face. Next time they meet, Yuri will absolutely find out. He throws himself into training for Skate America with an abandon that earns him Victor’s compliments and Yakov’s grouching that he shouldn’t overdo it. It doesn’t help him get rid of the anxious fever that’s simmering under his skin, but at least the points for emotional presentation in his free skate promise to be through the roof.

He’ll take it.

***

New York greets him with a flurry of snowflakes, too early in the year by anyone’s standards, even Russia’s. Yuri is shivering with both cold and anticipation when he steps out of the plane.

He can’t get hold of Otabek right away, even though he’d arrived a day earlier — first, Yakov drags them into the rink to warm up into the timezone, and when they come back, there is some impromptu reception in the hotel lobby, taken over by reporters. 

Yuri dodges the journalists that aim their mics at him by shoving Katsuki in their direction — Katsuki on television is better entertainment than the Moscow Circus — and slips from the crowd. He wishes Otabek was better at checking his phone when abroad.

He doesn’t watch his step as he walks and texts, so he almost walks into the Kazakhstan delegation, swarmed by their own circle of reporters. Otabek doesn’t see Yuri, because he’s patiently looking into the camera and answering questions.

Wanting to surprise him, Yuri pulls his hood on more firmly and skulks at the back of the crowd, hiding his face behind his phone.

“— your plans for the next year?” he catches the tail end the question. Otabek says something polite and patriotic about giving back to his country that has supported him so far. Yuri adores him, but even he can admit that Otabek’s interviews are hardly ever front page material. And they don’t have to be, he thinks, the press doesn’t need to see more than his composed determination and steady grace. Yuri can keep his dry humor, and crinkling eyes, and warm mouth all to himself.

Yuri’s finger slips and he nearly dials Victor by accident. He curses and kills all apps until he can only see the icons on his phone desktop.

“Thank you so much,” the reporter flashes her teeth at Otabek, and jabs her mic too close to his face. “But we were hoping to hear something more personal, perhaps. We’ve heard rumors that you are considering moving your home rink to Russia, to be a little closer to your boyfriend. Is that true?”

The voices rise and camera flashes go off like a flock of predatory birds clacking their beaks and flapping their wings in attack. Yuri’s heart drops into his shoes, then soars like a hot air balloon, heating his cheeks and making his head spin. He both wants to disappear into the crowd, and to elbow his way into the front of it, to hear Otabek’s answer. He does neither, and holds his breath.

“I prefer not to answer any questions about my personal life,” Otabek’s voice reaches him, steady as a rock. “But I appreciate your interest in my professional career. Do you have any further questions?”

Yuri exhales, feeling like an untethered balloon, and drifts away, unnoticed.

Yuri loves a good dramatic gesture every now and then, but even he thinks confronting Otabek about his interview on a podium would be a little excessive. 

Plus he doesn’t have the patience to wait that long. He paces back and forth in his room, seething until he feels like he's started smoking a little at the seams. When his messages change their status to ‘read’, Yuri storms up to Otabek’s room.

Otabek opens his door on the first knock. 

“Yura,” he says, and opens his arms. All the battle energy that has been coiling in Yuri’s limbs flails wildly at the sight of Otabek’s silent invitation, and he groans and collapses against Otabek’s warm, solid frame.

“Beka,” he mumbles angrily, pressing his face into Otabek’s shoulder. The door closes behind them with a soft click. Otabek’s arms wrap around him, and Yuri wants to burrow into the embrace forever. He must have blindly acted on his wish and pushed himself closer, because Otabek makes a little huff as he turns them both in the hallway and his back hits the wall. He doesn’t let go of Yuri, though, so Yuri stays where he is for a few more heady breaths, tension in his spine uncoiling one vertebra at a time. 

Having an emotional meltdown because of ridiculous knee-weakening cologne and world class hugs is not on his agenda, Yuri remembers eventually, and pushes himself away. 

He is still not feeling steady on his feet, so he props himself against the wall. Bracketed by Yuri’s arms on both sides like this, Otabek looks — terribly kissable, Yuri thinks in black despair.

“You,” he says. His accusation stops there.

“Me,” Otabek parrots. His eyes crinkle in pleasure. Everything is terrible. Yuri can’t fight with him, Yuri can’t fight _that_. 

That spark of anger is enough to put him back on track, so Yuri jabs a finger at Otabek’s chest. “Why didn’t you say anything at the interview today?” he bites out, trying to sound tough and not at all like he’s desperate.

The quiet pleasure in Otabek’s face drains away, and he raises a hand to rub at his cheek. “You heard? I didn’t see you there.”

Yuri nods, his stomach twisting in knots again. He didn’t think his questions would make Otabek look so uncomfortable. Otabek is not meeting Yuri’s gaze, and wow, that’s a first. That’s a terrible first.

“I was there,” Yuri confirms, “when she asked you about — about Russia.” Tell me if she was right, he thinks. Tell me if you are thinking of coming. Tell me how you’d answer if I asked the same thing.

Otabek rubs at his eyes, exhales loudly, and lets his hand drop. “I’m sorry, Yura,” he says, looking him straight in the eye. “It was selfish of me.”

Yuri stumbles on his mental mantra, and peers closer at Otabek’s face. He looks braced for a storm, and sheepish, and — 

“Are you blushing?” Yuri exclaims, disbelieving. The ruddy color on Otabek’s cheeks goes a shade deeper. Otabek looks stoic and miserable, and Yuri is overwhelmed by an _ocean_ of fondness. With a delay, his brain catches up with Otabek’s words, and Yuri says: “Apologize? Selfish? What are you on about?”

“I should have respected your wishes,” Otabek says, “and explained to her that we’re not — you’re not my boyfriend.” He takes a deep breath, and ploughs on with visible reluctance. “But I didn’t want to.”

Yuri’s wishes recently have all featured plastering himself against Otabek in different circumstances but with the same zeal, but this doesn’t seem to be about that. “Didn’t want what, why?”

“I didn’t want to say you are not my boyfriend,” Otabek says slowly. “Because if I said it on air, that would make it — more true. It’s stupid, I know. As I said, selfish.”

Painstakingly, Yuri twists Otabek’s words in his mind, but they all come down to one thing. “You are selfish because you want that to be — less true. Did I get that right?” 

Otabek hangs his head. “I never wanted you to be bothered by this. As you said, it’s my problem entirely.”

This must be about those poor disrespected wishes of Yuri’s. Otabek’s words tug at something buried in Yuri’s memory under layers of unimportant rubbish, and he recalls running his mouth about Victor and Katsuki’s saccharine displays, and being done with PDAs in general. Puzzle pieces fall into place, to the low roaring hum rising in his mind like a stadium about to explode with applause. 

“Beka,” Yuri says seriously, as he grabs two fistful of Otabek’s shirt. “I say a lot of shit, Beka.”

He has won this, he thinks, and pulls Otabek down into a kiss.

Their teeth click painfully, and Yuri curses and laughs, because he now knows that there will be more kisses, and can find it in himself to break this one to angle himself better against Otabek, slotting easily into his arms, and then find his mouth again.

Otabek kisses him back, with confusion that quickly gives way to greediness, and Yuri has a hazy realization that Otabek hasn’t heard Yuri’s part of the story yet.

Later. He’ll get to that later. There is a lot of catching up to do now.

***

He does get to make his little dramatic gesture, too.

The picture of Yuri and Otabek hugging on the podium (and 30% of Yuuri Katsuki to their left, poorly cropped out of the frame) tagged _#boyfriend #favouritedatespot_ breaks the likes count.


End file.
